Facebook access blocked in Iran

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The Iranian government has reportedly blocked access to Facebook in the run-up to presidential elections, fearing that supporters of a rival candidate have been successfully marshalling support on the social network.

Supporters of candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi (pictured) had been using Facebook as a campaigning tool and his Facebook group has more than 5,000 members. Iran’s Ilna news agency reports that users attempting to access Facebook from within Iran are greeted with a message in Farsi telling them that it is not possible to access the site.

A Facebook spokesperson, expressing the company’s disappointment with the move, said:

It is always a shame when countries’ cultural and political concerns lead to limits being placed on the opportunity for sharing and expression that the Internet provides.

At the time of writing, the Iranian government has made no official statement regarding the blocking of access, but another opposition candidate has said, rather cryptically, that the site was blocked for ‘moral reasons’.

In a briefing to the media, opposition candidate Mehdi Karroubi said:

As far as I know the blocking of this website was due to problems of morality but during this pre-election period, many issues are interpreted as political

The attempt to stifle free political debate and shuttering of communication channels leads some to suspect that further censorship may occur in the run-up to the June 12th elections in Iran. Twitter would be another obvious candidate for government blocking if campaigners switch to this platform to get their message across; and other social networks such as MySpace could easily be affected.